Flying on Broken Wings
by Lady Ayisha
Summary: A re-write of my original fic. Clarice Starling never did learn how to play nice with the politics of the FBI, and this story begins as though the novel, Hannibal, ended the same as the movie in 2001. A great deal is taken from both books and both movies.
1. Chapter 1

Clarice Starling irritably threw her sweat-soaked towel down on the rumpled remains of her bed and fell gracelessly into the chair beside it. Her day had been long and uninspiring, as all of her days had been since her rapid rise during the Buffalo Bill case, and subsequent tumble from grace in the days after the fallout at Chesapeake Bay. She buried her sweat-bathed face in her hands and dragged her too-slim hands through her autumnal locks as her breathing returned to normal even if the race of her thoughts refused to do the same.

_Krendler, _she thought viciously. This was all his fault. He was a ruined man now, reduced to drooling in a corner and playing with infant's toys, but Clarice sometimes thought, on days like this one when she was most prone to feeling sorry for herself, that his misfortune would be more acceptable than hers. Long ago, someone she trusted, and to whom she had looked for wisdom and guidance had told her that anger was counter-productive and would get her nowhere. He had been attempting to teach her to run with the flow of the politics that invariably came along with the job description – even his seemingly-lowly title of Section Chief had borne its share of political wrangling and ass-kissing sessions, but it had been one area in which Clarice Starling, both a protégé of the stoic, late Jack Crawford and Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter, had failed.

_And what about Doctor Lecter? What is he doing now? _It had been a year since the fiasco that had essentially sealed her fate within the Bureau as no more than a two-bit paper-pusher onto whom the least-taxing cases were occasionally transferred. Ardelia sometimes called on her skills to help with her own cases, but they both knew it wasn't the same, and the pair of them had been drifting apart for some time because of it.

Gone were the frenzied study sessions for 'one last test' that spilled far into the night, or the early morning runs around the campus tracks at Quantico for a final cram session. But people changed and moved on with their lives, Clarice thought.

_Or some of us do, anyway. _She thought of one man in particular who would never change. Everything about him was exactly as he liked it, and he'd spent far too long crafting that image to let something as trivial as time change that now. When she realised which track her thoughts had taken after departure, she groaned, and her voice seemed uncomfortably loud in her little apartment. "Dammit, Starling, can you get through an entire _hour_ without thinking about him?" But he'd gotten under her skin, and she'd let him into her head in all the wrong ways, just as Jack had warned her against. _Jack... _There was a man she missed. A heart attack in his home office, she'd heard. She hadn't attended the funeral, even though she'd wanted to. Too many people had heard the rumours and slander that pressed his tired, worn body against her supple mind.

She hadn't wanted to dishonour him that way.

Her mind, her mind was tearing her apart. It was the swift, always-moving current that had pulled her through the grueling classes and seminars as a student at Quantico; it was her inexhaustible supply of flowing thought processes that had garnered her Jack Crawford's favour, and it was that mind, coupled with reflexes that had been trained out until they were nearly as fast, that had erased Jame Gumb's stigma from the world.

It was that mind, coupled with her innate refusal to bow to the petty demands of internal office politics and alter her moral code to appease The Powers That Be, which had _also _drawn the intense displeasure of her superiors. Men like Krendler had once been, they resented her entry into the exclusive inner circles of the FBI – she was too quick, too good, too much _more _than they were on too many levels, and while she'd been useful – and while they'd been under Jack Crawford's constraints – Clarice had remained. But Crawford was gone, and so were the high-profile headlines. Now, she was a scapegoat for their ill-advised decisions. It was infuriating, but ...

_But at least they never knew about the refrigerator. _That fridge, that damned fridge. Sometimes she would wake in the close darkness of her bedroom, remembering the scent of his expensive aftershave mingling with the aromas of wine and good cooking spices on the monster's lips. Torn between something she could not name and a towering fury she could not touch for fear it would consume her, she had been trapped then as she was now. Helpless then to resist him, and helpless now to resist his memory:

_She felt the cold metal, almost cruel against her back, and winced as she felt her stitched shoulder tear open. Blood trickled into the expensive fabric of the dress he had brought her and she gasped silently at the pain. He was snarling, was an only inch away from her face, and abruptly, with a power she thought was inhuman, wrenched the handle off the door, catching her long ponytail in its metal clasp as he slammed the door shut with her in it.. He bared his teeth and snapped at her as if to bite –she didn't flinch, she couldn't, not with him so close, - but kissed her instead. His lips had not been cold or repulsive; behind their touch had tremoured such soaring promises of sensuality that her very soul had trembled. _

Sometimes, in her dreams, she kissed back.

Sometimes, time stopped in her dreams, in that place.

Sometimes, she would wake, with the sheets clinging to her naked body, her flesh afire with the notion that they had done more and gone to those forbidden, hidden places in her mind where her darkest desires were kept.

Sometimes, she wished she could stop dreaming.

But, in the end, she had attempted to fulfill her duty, like the pathetic dog she was. She refused to consider the notion that she had cuffed him there, with her, against that fridge, not to resign him to a windowless, graceless world of terrible food, worse television choices, and guards at least as twisted as the inmates whom they kept contained but to ...

No. She wouldn't even consider it. She didn't _miss _him, and there was nothing to the tabloid writers' gleeful exclamations that she'd followed him to the shore where he'd taken his final leave of her, his blood black in the firecracker-speckled dark, to murmur her lover's goodbyes. She'd gone after him in the hopes of apprehending him, in the hopes of finishing her job and

_finally getting their respect_

putting the monster where he belonged.

_Stop it, Starling, stop it! _She reprimanded herself, rising and slamming into the shower. Twenty minutes later, cleaner, cooler and in fresh clothes, she wore a more acceptable appearance, if not a suitable frame of mind. She stalked down to her meager kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, absently noting that it was the last one and that she'd have to do some shopping soon or risk starvation in this hellhole of an apartment. Swigging the cold liquid, she wandered out into the front room right as the postman began dropping the mail through the slot. Retrieving his leavings as though they were the fetid droppings of a misbehaved dog, she dropped the lot of it on the sad conglomeration of wood that passed for her coffee table and perused her daily mail. An electric bill, a magazine telling her she wasn't shapely enough for summer without its help, her telephone bill…

The familiar, elegant scrawl on the heavy envelope that comprised the final item of her postman's generosity numbed her fingers and set her pulse on a race to break free of her skin. Her water splattered on the carpet as she let it and the envelope drop, but her stasis was only temporary. Turning aside, she hastened to the kitchen and pulled on plastic evidence gloves, ignoring how her fingers trembled in their latex casings. Her gut told her it was far too late to bother with such formalities, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation did nothing if all was not done according to The Protocol, and she'd taken enough of her boss' acrid sense of humour to want to be on the receiving end any more than she had to be. _What did you think this was, Starling? _he'd demand._ A letter from a friend? Is Lecter some kind of freakish pen-pal to you now?_

Forcing herself not to think, she excised the neatly-folded letter with far more caution than was really necessary and delicately opened it with one hand, slipping the envelope into a plastic Ziploc bag for later examination with the other. The contents didn't surprise her. More of the same elegant handwriting adorned the thick, expensive parchment, and the ink in which it was written was fine and well-blended.

She almost smiled. He hadn't changed a bit.

_Dear Clarice,_

_I see this letter finds you well, if somewhat dismayed at your sudden tumble in the hierarchy of your precious FBI. Who looks shamefully down upon you now, Clarice? Is your daddy staring up at you from his grave, or scowling at you in your dreams? After all, the tenuousness of your current circumstance is a long fall down from the high pinnacle of celebrated Special Agent, Clarice._

_I would imagine even now that you are still practicing your tricks like an obedient little girl, checking for fingerprints, noting the postmark and calling the letter in. They'll make nothing of it, you know. Ah, you've no doubt noted by now that it's a United States postmark. Ingenious, my dear, but no treat. I must regretfully inform you that I simply could not be present to deliver this letter personally from my hand to yours. Minor disappointments keep us primed for the good things in life, though, wouldn't you say? _

_The tabloids are screaming as loudly as your lambs do, I've noticed lately – pairing the forgotten Beauty with the terrible Beast. Laughable, really. The unfortunate Mr. Krendler may have found my gifts of artwork to be romantically inclined, but I assure you, it was not meant to be._

For some reason she couldn't quite fathom, she found that flat, outright dismissal of soft feelings almost hurtful, and once again, could not bear to examine the reasoning behind it. Ignoring herself, she read on, but there wasn't much more. She wondered what he'd say if she ever told him how predictable he was becoming.

_Though I am sure you are sorely wracking your brain for a reason behind my sudden communication with you, you will not find one more compelling than, on my last foray past your domicile, I noted that your living conditions were in dire need of something with which to cheer them up. I do hope the flowers help._

_It is my fondest wish, Special Agent Starling, that this correspondence lightens your day. It certainly brightened mine to write it._

_As always, Clarice, my fondest regards,_

_Hannibal Lecter, M.D._

_Flowers? _Her telephone shrilled, startling her into fumbling for her gun. After a few moments and two more irritating rings, she composed herself enough to pick it up. "Clarice Starling."

"Hello, this is FTD Florist calling, and we'd like to confirm your address for a delivery."

Her skin prickled, and between mouthing something unquestionably unladylike in the doctor's general direction, she managed to stammer out the details of her address to the cheerful receptionist. Her mind was screaming at her to call headquarters, but she denied it, pacing the confines of her small apartment for another hour, waiting, waiting.

When the flowers came, there was no note, of course; he was not a man prone to burdening the harsh bite of his intellectual superiority with needless repetition. She stared at the blooms in silence as they regarded her from their expensive crystalline vase.

Calla lilies, sometimes recognised in various parts of the world as arum lilies, have long been known to festoon the heads of pure, young brides and garnish the shining caskets in which the dead begin their final return towards the earth. Symbolism was not easily lost on Agent Starling, and she looked away from the blind, white stares of the flowers with a shudder.

And what was the game now, she thought? There were no false bargains to be made, no Senator's daughters to rescue. Any situation without a game of cat and mouse to keep his interest... She shook her head. There would be time enough to consider his motives later.

_Good things come to those who wait_, he'd said once. She'd been waiting a very long time.

She called headquarters immediately.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, Starling, it seems you can't get rid of the guy." Special Agent Pearsall leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his face. "The postage stamp checks – it's from Krendler's old house at Chesapeake Bay. We've sent people over there to investigate."

"Sir, the letter says clearly that he wasn't in the U.S when it was mailed." She sat back in her chair, separated from him by the great, dark abyss of his accomplishments. He would take offense at her cool, quiet tone as it tore away the self-congratulatory shroud in which he'd wrapped himself.

He did, snapping back in his chair. "It only says, Starling, that he couldn't be at your place to hand-deliver the thing!"

"In my experience with Dr. Lecter, sir, that means he isn't in the same country."

"Your experience…" He paused and hit a button. "Jane, ask the powers that be for a meeting sometime today. I've got something of a favour to ask them."

"Yes, Sir," came the somewhat nasal reply. Clarice sat stone-faced.

He turned back to her. "Now, Starling, you know I'm the first one to allow that the Bureau's been treating you a little unfairly lately --,"

_A little, you self-important, ass-kissing roach? You and your cronies threw me to the wolves, and you think The Bureau's been a little HARD on me? _Rage coalesced into a seething monster within her, burbling its way up from her gut and spilling its poisonous words on her tongue. Her lips opened of their own accord and she knew she could not hope to stop the torrent of words that would come tumbling past them.

" -- and I think I can convince them to give you another chance. Times are hard here at the Bureau, Clarice, and a big catch like Lecter would put some shine back into a tarnished career."

_There's gonna be a nasty mess to clean up in this office real soon if he don't stop talking._

Polite interest, nothing more._ Don't move, don't give anything away. He wants you to give yourself away._ Crazily, she wondered how Lecter would look, sitting before Pearson's vast desk. _He'd probably wait until the pompous ass was done talking and – _Dear God, she could see it. He'd raise the fingers of his left hand slightly, as though he were at lessons in a schoolhouse and waiting his patient turn, and then he would smile. That smile, she knew, was a terrible thing. It was the last thing the mouse ever saw. _I just have one question, Agent Pearson, before I go. Do you really think we don't all know the reason for your overly-large desk? _Clarice felt laughter crowding her throat and wondered when it was she'd finally lost what little of her sanity she'd had left.

Oblivious to Starling's internal debate, Pearsall was continuing. "Two weeks, Starling, to find out any information you can. It's the chance you've been waiting for," he added. She was watching him with those empty blue eyes of hers. What lay behind them was a quick and frightening mind that, once, he would have been proud to work alongside. But she'd set the nails in her own coffin, and he couldn't let her take him down with her. "We'll give you two weeks to find out where he could be. Once you find out, we'll send you wherever that is. Anything necessary to your job will be provided for you. Your job from then on will be to catch him – and contact the branch of the FBI wherever you are in order to arrange for safe transport of the both of you back to the States."

"And if I fail, Sir?" She felt she had to ask.

His eyes narrowed. "You'd better hope you don't."

"Yes, Sir." She nodded and rose when he dismissed her.

"One more thing, Starling." For a moment, he thought of spilling everything, of telling her just what it was she was up against, but something froze his tongue. There were only two outcomes to the scenario he had painted for her, and neither of them were good. She'd either come home disgraced... or dismembered. He shivered.

She paused at the doorway. "Yes, Sir?"

"Be careful. I don't want to have to bring you home in cooking pots." It was the least he could say, to warn her against what he knew she had already comprehended. He thought, perhaps, that if anyone could catch Dr. Hannibal Lecter, it might be her, but thinking like that belonged in a world contained between two sides of a dust-jacket, not here in the harsh colours of reality.

Clarice's lips twitched palely in an attempt at a smile, and walked away.


	3. Chapter 3

He smiled as he sipped his wine. She was coming to see him. What fun. She had always provided a good deal of entertainment for him, and soon, they'd be back together and the games would begin in earnest.

As his cellphone buzzed quietly on the marble tabletop, he flipped it open and added a deep grumble to his polished Italian. "_Ispettore _Tradimento." He listened a moment and nodded, the feral smile on his lips never quite reaching his eyes.

"The American agent has been given clearance to come to Florence, inspector. You wanted me to call you when the final authorisation came through."

"_Grazie, _Vincetto. I'll be in late tomorrow morning."

Had anyone asked Hannibal five years prior how much of a use he might have for the late Rinaldo Pazzi's far-reaching connections within and without the FBI, he would have smiled and told them there was a use for everything. When he had found it some months ago, he had utilised Pazzi's connections to make a place for himself at the FBI headquarters in Florence, only discarding the man's information when he had gained his own pass-codes into their databases. From more than four thousand miles away, he had overseen Clarice's tumble in the ranks of her beloved FBI, watching as they fed her to the wolves, smiling as she rose, defiant, and continued on her quest for honour and righteousness. Into his elegant web, he had then ensnared her, cutting a deal with the American FBI to ship her over here ... to hunt him down. He'd seen to it that she would be placed 'back on the case', so to speak, and now, all he had to do was bide his time.

Smiling, he padded across the thickly-carpeted room and fingered the velvet of an expensive evening dress, humming a waltz as he did so.

He glanced out the window, over the bustling town square, and listened to the music of Italian words floating in on the summer-scented breeze. He moved silently over the soft carpet, slipping into his shoes and moving softly over the cool tiles as he gathered his coat and hat.

He was in the mood for the Opera.


	4. Chapter 4

Clarice slumped dejectedly on her couch, ignoring how the springs, poking through the shabby material, stabbed into her legs and back. She only had a week left, and no leads of which to speak. There was _evidence_ that Lecter had left the States some weeks after the incident at Chesapeake, but no leads as to where he could be now. She let her head fall back against the back of the couch, her eyes traveling with disgust over the threadbare furniture, the spotted, chipped walls, and the shoddy second-hand rugs. This place was worse, sometimes, she thought, than Lecter's tiny little cell in Baltimore had been. At least in there, she thought bitterly, he'd had someone to talk to. She took little pride in her surroundings because, once upon a time, she'd had hopes and dreams that centered around using it only as a storage place for her weapons, and a place in which she could grab sporadic amounts of sleep. Instead, it had turned into a physical reminder of her failure to rise above and conquer.

"Lecter was right when he said this place needed cheerin' up." Her West-Virginian accent was in full swing, as it always was when she was tense or tired. Right now, she was both, and was rapidly forgetting a time in which she had felt neither. Her eyes closed and she drifted off into a half-sleep, a state in which her best ideas often came to her, waking only when the lambs began to scream.

She jolted into awareness, her gun in hand before she was even half-conscious, realizing a moment later that the screaming was _not _the be-damned lambs Hannibal was always going on about, it was simply the ringing of her cellular phone.

Not relinquishing her hold on her gun, she answered it awkwardly with her left hand. "Starling."

A pause and she was about to repeat herself when the person on the other end spoke.

"Hello, Clarice." His voice, deep and almost grating, as if he struggled to bring it forth from his lips after long disuse, echoed in her ears. But there was danger in that comparison; he struggled at very little in this world they shared, though she was having quite a time trying to hang on to the telephone in her shock.

"Dr. Lecter…" She took a breath and forced herself to remain calm, to be civil. Always be civil. "It's been a while… How are you?" Cursing herself for sounding so inane, she waited.

On the other end, thousands of miles away, he smiled. His little Starling, so polite. "I'm faring quite well, thank you, Clarice. How kind of you to ask. I apologize for waking you; I know you need your sleep. But I also know that you need my help… You're crawling back to your Bureau again, Clarice," he chided her gently. "Trying to find me so they'll grudgingly hand you your title and claim to fame, as it were."

"Where are you, Dr. Lecter?" She felt she had to get her words in quickly, or his voice, his words, would reduce her to shambles.

Lips that were unaccustomed to the gesture of smiling did so with stiff, feral grace. "No, Clarice. You find _me_. I've been looking for you – now it's _your _turn to be the seeker. That's what your precious FBI has always wanted you to do. Do it."

His voice unpleasantly reminded her of the faint, hissed words of a twisted man in a wheelchair. She had heard Mason Verger order his physician, Cordell, to do _something _to Hannibal as she lay, dazed and half-fainting from a gunshot wound, in his arms. His arms had been so strong, warm around her back… She jerked herself back with a soft gasp, one she prayed he hadn't heard.

Of course, her prayers weren't answered.

"Are you quite all right, Clarice?" Something was not right with his Starling; she was falling and he was not there this time to catch her. Was she, then, the ill-fated deep-roller of which he had warned Barney years ago? His tongue touched the tip of the receiver into which he spoke as if the pink serpent of his tongue could lap at her pain despite the distance between them.

"Yes, Doctor, I'm fine." But her voice was ragged, the emotion in it so palpable he could taste it. He moved slowly into the darkening theater and on the other end, she could hear the noise of what her trained ears knew to be none other than a theater or opera. Her mind flashed back to Florence, to the fate of Inspector Pazzi, the stupid fool who had tried to track Lecter down himself for money. She listened harder, and was sure she caught murmurs of Italian.

He smiled. She was listening, he knew, digging and sifting through every sound her ears could catch over the separate phone lines. He murmured a good evening in musical Italian to a passerby, smiling still.

"Yes, Clarice. My home away from home. Now, if you'll forgive me, I must bring an end to this delightful conversation...You have packing to do… and I have a show to watch…"

Barely containing her excitement, though such would never show on her face to one who did not know her, she nodded. "Yes, Doctor Lecter… Enjoy your show… Goodnight."

"My thanks, Clarice. Do have a safe trip. Goodnight." He closed the connection with a smile.


	5. Chapter 5

"Wow, a real, live FBI agent! What's it like, do you get to travel, to see people? How many people have you arrested? How long have you been doing it? Can I see your case files?"

Clarice groaned softly to herself. The man sharing the seat next to hers hadn't stopped chattering since she had boarded, and it was just the stroke of her own luck that told her circumstances weren't about to change. The moment he'd seen her badge – and that had been a slip on the part of another passenger, who had knocked into her as she'd been stretching up to put her bag in the overheard compartment – the deluge of questions had begun. His body fairly bounced in his seat, and there was more than a comfortable amount of him to move around in his excitement, bringing with it a fetid wave of air scented distastefully with stale sweat. This was going to be a long flight, she thought wearily. A very long flight.

"I'm sorry, sir," she demurred in what she hoped was a gracious but firm tone. "I can't let the public into these files." She quickly slipped them back into her briefcase. The moment he saw a picture of Hannibal, the whole _plane _would know what she was doing. "Now, _please_, I'd like to get some work done, and I need quiet to concentrate." Her tone, sharper than she had intended, nevertheless did the trick. The man snapped back in his seat and glared at her. He reminded her of the overfed bulldog one of her foster parents had had in the orphan's home. Every time anyone refused to share their food, his eyes would retreat into the hairy puffs of flesh surrounding them and his jowls would droop in a disapproving frown. He would scowl like a child denied a sucker, with an old man's deeply-lined face, and the expression had been one of the few things that had never failed to make her laugh.

She glared right back, trying desperately not to release her mirth. She needed a good laugh – indeed, she couldn't remember the last time she'd had one - but now was _not _the time for it. Finally, her gimlet stare wore him down and, mumbling something unpleasant about women in general, he stared huffily out the window.

Clarice turned her face away and couldn't hold back the smile that had been threatening, but it faded as the features of a sour old canine were replaced by the mien of a monster – who was, nonetheless, never far from her mind. She took a deep breath and held it, trying to slow her racing heart, trying to focus, but her thoughts invariably returned to him and the letter.

He'd sent it the day before she'd left for Florence, and it had been mercifully short, but frightening in the confusion it evoked. He had seemed to discard his penchant for crippling observations and cruel insults to both the character of those she served and herself – something seemed _wrong _with it somehow. She'd had it checked out thoroughly this time by an independent team of forensic scientists with whom Ardelia had some contact and they had verified parts of the letter as matching the criteria with which she'd supplied them. They'd known nothing of her case or her past, only that she was looking for certain measures of similarity, so there was no danger of anything being leaked to the press or, God forbid, her superiors. Something had stayed her hand from telling them about the communications she had received from the monster after the first letter he'd sent. She kept it all close to her heart as though it were a secret so sacred that she could not bear to confide it to another.

It was as though the continuation of her sanity, a thing which she had cast from her as doomed some time ago, hinged on keeping everything of his that she could capture as close to her own self as possible. She knew she could do this, Clarice thought fiercely. She would bring the monster home, either to justice or to an unmarked grave, because ... because she had to. For so long, he had dogged her mind and her every move, providing an obstacle against which to throw herself, against which to sharpen her resolve. He had demanded once of her, after having come 'halfway around the world to watch her run' to let _him_ run, too, but if there was an area in which Clarice Starling had a failing, it was her tenacious obsession with righteousness. She would let the world fall down around her before she would give into its demands for mediocrity, at the expense of everything she held dear, for it was dearest yet to her. _It will never end. I know that now. But I just can't... stop..._

Wearily, she closed her eyes and, unbidden, the words of his latest missive floated back to her, whispered in a soft, grating voice she found to be oddly soothing.

_Dear Clarice,_

_I do hope this gets to you in time. Knowing your endless desire for perfectionism and your innate need to have every event in your life under your control, you're no doubt still packing, pacing your bedroom, perhaps, trying to decide how much to bring. How long will your search last, little Starling? Will you swoop down on me, your prey, and bring me to a swift and terrible justice? I do hope not, for that really wouldn't be any fun at all. Please, pack something nice for an evening out – even your precious FBI will forgive you a night out. You're tired, my little Starling, and you deserve a little something for the courage it took to get you this far._

_Please accept the ticket enclosed with my compliments._

_I hope to see you there…_

_Ta Ta,_

_H._

The enclosed ticket, which had been removed and hidden carefully in a makeup bag in one of her suitcases, was for a performance of Strauss' _Salome_. Clarice shivered despite herself, wrapping her arms around her body even though the press of bodies in the small plane was stifling. The opera had never been a subject her training had ever led her to investigate, but a swift cram on the taxi ride to the airport revealed enough to get by, she supposed. It was no surprise to her that the opera he had chosen had been banned in more than one country – she remembered well the delighted shimmer in his eyes when he had handed Krendler a dish of his own brains upon which to sup. Even now, it brought a shudder of horror to her petite frame, and she was certain that _Salome, _with its erotically-famous _Dance of the Seven Veils_ would hold exactly the same titillation for the good doctor, if not for herself. Something about the opera, some symbolism lost within it, tingled at her mind, but it had been a long week, a long month, a long year... and she was so very, very tired...

Laying her head back against the seat, she tried to shut out the compelling image of two icy blue eyes. Their real color, she knew, was a deep, almost bloody maroon, but that would be too easily noticed. He had avoided notice for years now… She tensed in fury as her inner voice, almost as damnable now as those lambs, began to jibe her. _What makes you think you can find him? You're not even a Special Agent! He's killed nosy people like you just for having little intelligence._

But somehow, Clarice didn't think Hannibal would kill her. Not even now. That wasn't his game. If she was correct in her studying of him, he had never harmed a woman. Clarice knew that there were times in which he had discarded his usual elaborate _modus operandi _and simply employed the tactics of a wild animal, slashing and snarling for his survival. He had assured her once that he 'had no intention of paying her a visit', that 'the world would be more interesting with her in it', but when he was on the opposite end of her department-issued Glock 23, what then? Would he discard any of his many cultured masks and simply come at her, his small white teeth bared in wild fury?

She shivered so hard that a passing stewardess stopped and eyed her for a moment that passed when Clarice turned her head to face her now-snoring seat-mate. For an eternity, she waited, staring at the slivers of drool etching their face down the man's blubbery jowls, willing the woman to keep moving. When she did, Clarice relaxed as much as she dared and tipped her head back, allowing the scream of tired, frustrated children somewhere behind her to jangle along her rattled nerves. She was flying blindly through the air to what could be a horrible demise... and like the pinpoints of red deep in his pupils, she might never see it coming, until it was too late... But what choice did she have? She had to follow his leads, had to play his game.... She had to … Her thoughts stopped.

_Given the chance, you'd deny me my life, wouldn't you?_

_Not your life...._

_Just my freedom. You'd take that from me... _

For a moment that she would never forget, she swore she'd heard a furious disbelief in the doctor's voice, and his following words had bitten at the air on which they'd been carried, with far more rancor than anything he'd thrown in her direction before. Always before, his sharp jibes had held an air of supreme self-confidence within them, as though he had crafted his observations not to cause her pain but only to see what reaction they would garner from her. That time, though, they had been literally spat at her as though he were a cobra trying viciously to blind his prey. _What changed, Doctor? What test did I fail that you'd set me? _And if she'd failed, why yet was she still alive?_ Why is he still allowing this? What game is he playing? I have to find out. I have to end this._

She had to? For what? _What am I fighting for? _Clarice felt part of her soul rock away from its mooring under a sudden deluge of indecision.. Was there any reason to what she was doing? She was fighting to capture a man who had eluded almost every agent in the field for the last ten years and for what? A hike in pay she'd never get? Approval from her peers? That wasn't likely either, not from the ones who mattered.

Clenching her teeth, she forced all thoughts from her head and closed her eyes again, focusing on the intake and release of every breath of stale cabin air that she drew into her lungs, not counting or thinking but simply drifting until her dreams passed the time away.


	6. Chapter 6

He moved with a sinuous grace that bespoke of a small, sleek cat, his grace and fluidity unrivaled even by men half his age. Years of good living would have softened another, but he found it enhanced the taste of his victories if he caught them struggling. He did the world a service, he thought, in removing from its populace the rude and distasteful, and why should he not reap the rewards of the finer things in life as his wages for a job well done?

Reaching over and grasping a finely-made wine flute, he carefully closed the slightly numb fingers of his left hand around the neck of a wine bottle, smiling faintly at the clear song of the glass against the pure crystal. He watched the golden liquid fill the flute, then slowly set the bottle aside, sipping delicately. Ah, not as good as he was used to, but it would do. There were too many people here that knew his tastes. Perhaps it had been foolhardy to return to a city in which he had killed several times, but he felt a connection to this place, felt sheltered within its swaths of cultured operas and art halls. He was at home here in this city of class and beauty; he felt invulnerable. He needed to be strong for his Starling, needed to have the strength she was losing every day.

He set down the wineglass and looks up, his senses abruptly on full alert. Rising from his seat at the window, he moved further into the apartment, wondering why he felt the acrid touch of danger shivering through him. He was protected here by vast sums of money and his own ingeniousness.

It was not for himself that he feared.

Glancing at the finely-crafted watch on his wrist, he saw that his Starling was due to wing into his glorious city in about an hour. Rising and slipping into his favourite Gucci shoes, he pulled a concealing overcoat over his black linen shirt and black silk trousers. His white fedora should conceal his face, for sunglasses at night aroused suspicion as well as presenting a crass, silly image to the world.

"Perhaps your genetics have worked against you at last, little Starling... You are rolling too deeply, too quickly. Do you not see the earth as it spirals up to meet you? Never mind..." he murmured under his breath, striding purposefully out of the palatial townhouse he had taken as his own. "I will be there to catch you. And what fun it shall be..."


	7. Chapter 7

As Clarice moved through the cramped corridors of the plane, she surreptitiously glanced around at first class, trying not to stare. _Oh, look at that …_ Seats you could literally _lie _in, free champagne and soft blankets, your own headsets… Feeling much like the country girl she had tried to avoid being for years, she hurried on as best as she could towards the exit, towards the airport… and towards _him_.

As someone jostled her from behind, she moved aside and craned her neck over her shoulder, glaring at the same man she had cowed into silence on the plane.

"G'wan and let yeur betters pass, bitch," he growled at her.

She froze, then scowled back at him, asserting the authority the FBI had pounded into her. "Only if I see one first."

He took a step back, startled by the insult, and she seized that moment to dart ahead of him, losing herself in the myriad of crowds in the airport, only to find herself mired in another problem when she left the confines of the gates. Cursing herself for having lowered to a snarling match of petty insults, she tried to find the baggage carousel belonging to her flight and cursed herself further for allowing the shivering jump of her frayed nerves to have allowed her to forget her boarding pass, replete with such necessary details as her flight number, on the dubious comfort of her seat back in the plane. "Stupid cowgirl, illiterate hussy … Can't even remember yeur ticket t'find yeur bags." Her accent in full swing, she looked around hopelessly, muttering obscenities to herself.

A young man in a business suit stopped and touched her on the arm. "Are you having trouble, miss?" His clipped English accent made her think, suddenly, of another man, much older and stronger, with haunting maroon eyes.

She shook herself. _Can't you stop it, Starling, for three seconds?! The man ISN'T HERE! And this one probably thinks you're nuts by now!_

_Aren't I? Hard to answer…_

She glanced back at the young man and smiled in agreement. "Yeah … I guess I am kinda havin' some trouble…" She licked her lips with distaste as she saw the man's eyes film with condescension.

"…But your aid shall not be necessary, sir… Though we both, I am sure, thank you for extending it." The metallic purr came from behind her, and Clarice jerked in surprise as she turned to behold Hannibal Lecter, holding her one suitcase with ease.

The young man, obviously disconcerted by the new arrival, lingered a moment more, then nodded uncertainly and hurried off. Clarice rounded on the man looming behind her, but he held up his free hand which was gloved like the other in soft, expensive black leather.

_To avoid fingerprints… _

"Please, Clarice, have the decency to avoid a scene until you are comfortably settled."

_Have the decency?_ Her temper flared to its highest point, but she clamped her lips over the angry words bubbling up over the oppressive scent of her fear, and nodded sharply. "Right." She hesitated a moment, and then reached to take her suitcase from him, but he shook his head.

"Please, allow me…This way." He strode forward towards the doors of the airport, slipping easily into the crowd and pulling his fedora lower over his eyes. He smiled to himself as Clarice followed furiously behind him. _Yes, my little Starling… I can almost taste your fury … Delicious. Simply delicious._

As they entered into the cool air of the summer night, Hannibal glanced back once to see Clarice shrugging further into her thin jacket. "You really should have brought something warmer," he chided her gently, taking immense delight in the sudden belligerent flare of her eyes as her fury, dismay and fear all collided together within their feline brightness.

Setting down her suitcase and carefully blocking it with his body, he stopped and pulled off his heavy jacket. She had not yet ceased her forward movement. Her chin was low against her chest, but not for a moment did he believe that she was inattentive towards her surroundings.

"Clarice." His voice was quiet and firm and carried no more distance than it needed.

She froze immediately, and he could see her pulse thrumming in her throat. She stared up at him and he barely restrained the urge to lick his lips at the sensuous scent of her fear and uncertainty. For a moment, her name hung between them in the air, and then a cool breeze fluttered the fabric of the coat in his outstretched hand.

_The grating crash made her jump as it echoed off the crumbling walls of the Dungeon. Her heart in her chest, she stared at the point from where its thundering clang had come. A towel, blindingly white under the harsh glare of the florescent lights, lay in the cradle of his metal food tray. Her trembling fear made the cold drops shiver as they released from her hair and trickled down her skin. "Th-Thank you," she stuttered and went to retrieve the rough square of prison-issued fabric. _

_He said nothing. She knew he wouldn't. From where was he watching inside that blackened cell?_

"Th-Thank you..." she muttered, aware of a dizzying sense of _deja vu_.

He said nothing. She knew he wouldn't. But this time, she could see his smile, hiding in his haunting eyes. This time, there was no glass between them; this time, there were no bars with which to keep the monster out. With her shaking, thin hands, she took the coat and sought to hide within it. There were scents in the fabric; fine perfume or cologne struck her unlearned nose, and the richer scent of some sort of cream – a soap or hand-lotion perhaps. She inhaled

"_Tennessee lavender.... and a trace of something ... else..."_

knowing that her trained senses would have picked up on blood in a moment, blood or gunpowder, but there was nothing like that on this coat. She settled into it with a little less anxiety. Something about the idea of wearing the stains of his monstrous deeds on her skin made a section of her mind want to detach from the rest and flee, trembling, into the dark, but this coat was replete only with the scent of a man and everything was all right as long as she didn't ponder too much on such a man's true identity.

He stepped back and looked critically at her. She really looked quite foolish with her petite, suave form draped in his overcoat. "Come along now." He watched as her finely-sculpted hands, more graceful than those of any artist's creation, gripped the gaping lapels and wrapped the voluminous fabric more securely around her at his command.

Satisfied, he picked up her suitcase again and began to walk forward, towards the car park area rather than the cheaper taxi stand. He sensed her confusion and smiled in delight as he felt her, inches behind him, fumbling for a weapon she didn't have. "Not here, Clarice…" he hissed softly. "I asked you not to cause a scene. Please respect my wishes." He lengthened his stride, sensing that she would not be able to keep her composure much longer, and headed towards the silver Jaguar that waited, the gaudy bright blue disabled tag dangling from its rear-view an unfortunate but necessary addition.

He unlocked the trunk and lifted her suitcase inside, smiling faintly as she waited, cautiously out of his reach. Moving around the sleek vehicle and watching as she shied back from his proximity, he courteously opened the door for her and motioned her inside. "Come now, Clarice, time waits for no one."

He watched as she slipped hesitantly into the car, noticing that, as he shut it behind her, she immediately checked to see if there was a lock or handle on her side. There was not, of course, he had made sure of that when he had purchased the custom-built machine. But for a moment, he was free to enjoy the sight of her hands trembling along the soft leather of the interior as she searched fruitlessly. Her fingers fluttered like sightless birds as they came to rest in her lap, and she did not look up at him, nor anywhere else. He wondered at the thoughts running through her mind, and at the scent of her uncertainty. He shut the trunk with a soft thud that rattled her more than it shook the car, and slipped behind the wheel of the car, starting the big engine with a rasping purr.

They drove away from the airport with no conversation between them; she knew her heart was pounding too loudly to allow her to open her lips – she was certain he could hear it from where he sat across from her, and she inched away even further, desperately wondering what she was going to do now. The part of her that had been slowly and irrevocably slipping away to laugh maniacally in the darkness of insanity was laughing now at the ironic turn her life had taken. To hunt him down, to remove his menace from the world and at last see in the eyes of her peers the respect she had always deserved, she'd come this far. She'd thought, at the time, she had been hunting _him_.

She should have known better. A madwoman's laughter bubbled up inside of her, but she crushed it with steely determination, refusing to think about the incongruity of her current situation. There was no aid she could find in sending her thoughts down that path. How best to escape must come first, and how best to capture him second. Nothing more.

She was aware of how much he watched her, and every time his eyes roved over her pale face, she felt her thoughts hitch a little.

She stared silently out at the passing scenery, pressed up against the car door as if praying to become a part of it. Hannibal watched her from time to time, suppressing the urge to lick his lips at the scent of her fear. As they drew closer to the embrace of the city, he seemed to come to a decision about something and, at last, he turned to her, edging the car over to the shoulder of the road and hitting the emergency blinkers with a light tap. "Give me your cellular phone, please, then turn your head to face the window if you would." The instructions were soft but insistent; the pleasantries contained within his request were sincere but did nothing to hide the menace implicit beneath them should she see fit to disobey.

His voice sent shivers down her spine. It was still cool and metallic, still the ever-calm growl that turned her insides to quivering masses of pure uncertainty. She was never sure around him, she admitted to herself. She hadn't been from the very first day she'd seen him, the day he'd called her… what had he said now? As she tried to remember, she fumbled at her side for the belt clip that held her phone, mashing her shaking fingers against the power button to activate the device before she handed it over, praying – and knowing it would go unheeded – that he would not touch her as she obeyed him. As their eyes met and his elegantly gloved hand gently removed the cellular phone from her grasp, he murmured his thanks and the sound of his voice jerked her mind back to the Dungeon and the phrase she'd been trying to remember.

_"A well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste…" _The words had startled her; while she'd crammed in everything she could about the man in the little time she'd been given to digest the feast of information the FBI had gathered on him and had read for herself of the various ways in which previous conversations with agents and psychologists alike had ended, she had not known, personally, the true castigating power his wit had held against her. Through the subsequent sessions with him, she had come to recognise it and coexist alongside its cruelty and sometimes devastating level of insight, but the first time, the first afternoon of many in the Dungeon, had completely thrown her off-balance. The worst part of his observations had always been that he made them knowing they were truths to which she had already admitted. She could not seek solace behind the notion that his reflections were mere opinion because they were far too much like those of her own inner critic.

_What the hell is he doing with my phone? _She turned away from her thoughts, but did not look away from the vista that rolled away from her window even as her hands worked independently of the rest of her. The view held no interest for her; what she wanted was behind her, in all of his frightening glory. She heard him murmuring something into her phone and then the snap as he closed it and ended the call. "You may turn around now, Clarice. Thank you for being so patient."

She turned and his eyes were watching her even as one gloved hand held forth her phone. For a moment, frozen silence lay between them as her feline-gilt eyes locked with his icy pools. Slowly, she reached out her hand to take the phone; she jumped when their fingers did not touch because she had been expecting something more. She saw his lips curve upwards and felt the shame in her soul broil into fury.

She went at him like a wild cat. Silently, a part of her horrified at her body's audacity, she clawed at him, her eyes filled with the scene at Muskrat Farm, the damnable _kitchen scene_ that had cost her everything she'd built her life around.

Snarling, hissing like some maddened feline, she scratched at his face, his head snapping back to avoid harm as he bared his small white teeth with his own animalistic growl and slammed her back with his considerable strength against the car window. Her neck snapped back, and her head bashed hard against the thick glass of the passenger window, transforming its cool smoothness into a crazed spider's web of cracks and lines, rendering her dazed for a sufficient amount of time for him to snatch the handcuffs she'd pulled silently out of her pocket, and cuff her slim hands uncomfortably to the handle jutting above the window. She could not fight him, but she could see a thin line of blood marring his upper lip, where her nails had connected. He licked at it joyously and she moaned in despair.

He bared his teeth at her in something worse than a smile. "Now, now, Clarice… That was rude of you. I was simply offering you a more palatable ride into town than the greasy interior of a smoky taxi." He raised one fine grey brow slowly. "Or were you thinking to calm yourself by reaching back to your roots?"

She fairly snarled at him and lunged, but he darted back, leaving her dangling from the car door like a cattle carcass on a meat hook. His killer's smile, one that would have dropped a brave man in his tracks, came again, but he could see that anger was clouding her eyes, filling her sight with its rasping red film. He could taste it. His tongue, wet and pink against the tanned lines of his features, darted out to caress his lips. He sampled what was all of her as he pulled the car back on to the road; tasted her scent, that rich, clean smell of honor and Dial soap; savoured the feel of her skin, sore from travel but soft with youth and innocence; relished the diamond-hard beauty of her body as it lay there against the door, taut and unyielding in its powerful, captivating elegance. He turned away, satisfied, leaving her silently caught against the door. Pulling back on to the road, he did not look at her again for some time.

He smiled to himself as he glanced over to her a final time as he neared their destination. She was dozing lightly against the door, the strain of travel and her tumbling fall from great heights in her precious FBI evident on her tightened features.

"_Clarice…_" Her name slipped from between his lips like the hissing sibilants of Judas Iscariot as he hung from the bleeding tree, but not once did Hannibal Lecter ever place the comparison upon himself.

There was no time now, he regretfully admitted to himself, to watch her sleep. Her precious FBIwould be calling soon, and he had no desire to let them catch him now… Not with his prize so close.

His voice startled her into wakefulness, but the anger was gone now. She lay limp and tired against the car door, exhausted from her trip and drained by the emotions their meetings had caused in her. She glanced at him but did not speak, not having the energy to pry her jaws apart and form sound. He exited the car and crossed to her side, opening the door and gazing at her. She dangled from the handle jutting out above the cut of the door in the car, and she felt horribly vulnerable as she hung there, her sides exposed to him. For one insane moment, she wondered if he would tickle her, and tried not to cringe away in breathless, agonizing anticipation. Her father had used to tickle her that way, up and down her sides with his strong, lean fingers.._. _She shook her head, swaying gently.

Hannibal watched her curiously as he leaned in close and grasped her wrists in one of his powerful hands. She seemed disoriented, he noticed, producing evidence of a possible concussion. One hand capturing her wrists, the other slipped the key to the handcuffs – prized with some difficulty from her left hand – into the lock, freeing her. Still holding her tightly, he swung her out of the car and set her down firmly on her feet, allowing her to regain her balance and narrowing his eyes when she did not react quickly. Quite the opposite, she leaned against him dazedly for a long moment, her breathing quick and shallow as she fought the inebriated sparkles of light and blackness that threatened to cover her vision. She was as trapped now as she had been in the vehicle, helpless to fight against the constraints of her own body

He caught her scent; it was overlaid with the smell of fresh blood, her blood, a coppery spice against the contrast of her sweet, cheap shampoo. "Dazed, Clarice? What, hurt, Clarice?" There would be no help for it, then. His lips came perilously close to the fine, soft skin of her ear, and he watched a frustrated tear slide down the pallid softness of that cheek before he spoke. "Allow me, Clarice." He would give her no choice, but to rest his hands without warning on her body while she could not – perhaps would not – fight him seemed ungentlemanly.

Lifting her into his arms like a child, she uttered some token protest as he jostled her into a position where he could both carry her and her suitcase, but the dark pools of her eyes stayed closed even when the cool blast of a highly-overused air conditioner struck her as they walked through the doors of the hotel. Settling her in a nearby chair where he could watch her in case she was feigning her pain, Hannibal strode up to the young man behind the desk, sliding his eyes carefully aside to watch her for a moment. That little episode in the car had been most exhilarating, but he was disinclined to let the fresh-faced clerk join in on the fun, as Hannibal was sure he would do should Clarice attempt to capture him by surprise. Tensely, but ever courteous, he asked the clerk whether arrangements had been made for a Clarice Starling. Smiling pleasantly, the man said there indeed had been, and was he a friend? The room was double-occupancy, after all.

_Interesting… _Hannibal noted. _They would send her to this flea-ridden excuse for lodgings, of all places, but then they would indulge in the questionable splendor of a double-occupancy room? Perhaps they thought she could seduce me ... How charming. Jack Crawford would be proud._ He questioned the clerk as to payments, knowing that arrangements had already been made, and the polite boy responded that there was no need at all to worry, sir, for everything's been taken care of.

Hannibal nodded pleasantly and took the packet holding the room cards from him, slipping it gracefully into the breast pocket of his shirt. As the helpful clerk tried to show him where the room lay, he shook his head and murmured that he would do well on his own.

He turned to Clarice and noted detachedly that she lay strewn across the chair, in the lax manner of someone who is mostly asleep – or unconscious. Flashing the clerk his most pleasant smile, a smile that, had he known the man from whose lips it had come, would no doubt have stopped his heart, Hannibal eased Clarice gently into his arms again, murmuring something about the rigors of travel.

Fifteen minutes later, he vanished into the evening crowds of Florence.


	8. Chapter 8

She woke slowly in the unfamiliar confines of the hotel room, her eyes not quite registering her surroundings for a frightening space of time. She twisted, caught in the warm embrace of the covers, on which lay the clean, cheap scent of childhood. Her mother's skin had been engraved with scents like these from the endless toils of her quest to provide for her family in a world that was barren without her husband. She had smelled of harsh detergent and softer hand soaps, tired sweat and despair. Her face had been lined years before her time, and the lines hadn't come from the rigors of her job, a job far beneath her pride, but one that was necessary for her survival. The lines had come from having to stand over that sink in the kitchen and wash blood from her husband's hat, from having to watch the red liquid of his life trickle down to a drain that cared little for how precious that life had once been.

Clarice shuddered in the warmth of the blankets and abruptly pushed and fought free of the covers, swaying only slightly as she stood. Her hand raised to the back of her head, wincing as she found the shallow cut along the back of her skull. The memories of the car ride came rushing back. She'd attacked Lecter, come so close to wiping that smirk off his face, and then he'd slammed her back – _smashed her back against the window like he'd pinned her against the fucking fridge!_ She ground her teeth furiously. And how the hell had she gotten here? She couldn't recall much after she'd hit the window; everything was fuzzy and blurred in her brain. If he'd brought her here… Was he still here? Her eyes flicked around the room, registering nothing that wasn't as it should be; her luggage had not been opened nor its contents rifled; he would never have permitted himself to stoop to such a petty level. Then he was gone again, and she would have to find him. Time was slipping away from her already, even if it didn't carry with it the same urgency as in the past. If she'd been sleeping the entire night – _Where's a god damned clock when you need one? _- it would mean she missed the check-in call for her damned shepherds, the FBI ….

"_Are the lambs still screaming, Clarice?"_

"Shut up, Dr. Lecter..." she hissed as she continued her search for a clock, wondering briefly how such a small necessity could have been overlooked. _Then again, most of the people who frequent this place are probably not the sort of people who care, unless we're talking about the space of time between one beer and the next..._

She grabbed her cellular phone, finally, and grimaced. Five a.m. her time which meant eleven or so here in Italy. The FBI was probably going nuts. On the screen of her cellphone, black letters flashed insistently, like the cry of a child for attention in a crowded room. There was only one message, and it was not from her superiors.

The voice was unmistakably Hannibal Lecter's.

"_Good morning, Clarice. __If you are listening to this, I would hope that you did not take too much damage during our little 'encounter' in the car. Something's tickling at me, though, Clarice, and I thought I should mention it – isn't it strange that your shepherds have not come seeking the safety of their lamb? But on to more pressing matters. You were sent here to hunt, were you not? Gather your virtues closely to you and seek the brightness behind your eyes. Ah, no more talk, no more riddles. Concern yourself, then with the artistry of Pietro Tacca, and the glories found within. Begin with the numbers 12 and 50121._

His voice had rather carefully enunciated each number, but he hadn't repeated it again.

Games. As a child, they had been meant to pass the time with some level of leisure, but a Starling's life had long since been lived without the time or inclination for such frivolous things, and games had swiftly become another way to get to the head of the class, to scrabble atop the crush of tangled hands and feet and bodies that squeezed, grasping, for every last morsel their hungry eyes could see. Childhood games at the orphanage to which she had been summarily sent after stealing Hannah and fleeing the screaming slaughter of the lambs had simply been an extension of the education that had become her haven, representing a solid destination where before there had been only the swirling-black chaos of wandering nothingness.

Hannibal played games for different reasons, Clarice thought. He played to show that he had long since mounted the final pinnacle, and that he had been comfortably ensconced on its throne, with his intelligence and cunning by his side, for some time. Games allowed him to laugh at those he believed were beneath him, and to destroy those he saw as an annoyance. Contests of wit and will were all cream and wine and meat to him, representative of the finest things in life, over which he held total dominion.

She remembered his words a few months back in a letter he had sent her before all the events at Chesapeake Bay had happened; how smug he had been! "_You accepted me, Clarice, and it is your job to craft my doom, so I'm not sure how well I should wish you..."_

Well, she owed him that, after all the trouble she had gotten into over the last few months, letting him get away after the fiasco at Chesapeake. The truth of the matter was, she was too clean, too tough, too proud to sacrifice her honour for the political chicanery that infested the Bureau to whom she had given up her life, her family, her unborn children... and they had used that against her. She stared at the far wall without seeing the fading pastel of the wallpaper, trying to shut away the niggling voice that whispered her worst fear – that they'd sent her here to be rid of her. Will Graham had gotten lucky in catching Hannibal – he'd been in the right place at the right time, and it had been years ago, in a time when the Doctor's arrogance had been unfettered by the notion that he could ever slip up, and that superiority had been, in the end, what had caused his capture – not any particular skill or swiftness on Will Graham's part.

_And where is he now? Hiding, for the rest of his life, with what's left of his family, hiding in the whiskey bottle in a house without mirrors. Is that really where you want to end things, Starling?_

Clarice tucked her knees up to her chest. _What can I do? What can I do to get my head straight? _She glanced at the door leading into the bathroom. While the pounding shower had none of the rhythmic heartbeat of a washing machine, the warmth and vibration of the water was a close second to where it was she needed to be.

She turned off the lights and closed her eyes, feeling for the bottle of her shampoo and conditioner, touching and retracing their familiar lines while her mind wandered. The tiles were slick beneath her feet as she stood beneath the beneficence of the shower's hot spray, thinking of everything and nothing. The soothing prick of the water against her skin could clear her mind and take some of the urgency away, at least for a time. She released all of the breath in her lungs in a slow rush, as though she were trying to drown, and resisted inhaling for nearly a minute as time floated away.

He listened to the sound of her heartbeat as it quickened under the strain she was placing on her body and smiled.

Still inside the confines of the blind shower stall, she leaned dizzily against the cool wall. Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears, drowning out all other distractions. She did not feel her feet sliding, but straightened out of reflex, dropping her head and drawing in a deep, slow breath at long last. Her body tried for more air and didn't get it; she held onto the bounty of the oxygen she'd taken in as though it were her prize.

Beneath the thudding bass of her heartbeat, she did not hear him walk away from the shower door and silently open the flimsy partition that served as a clothes closet to the left of the bathroom, near the cracked sink. The bar on which a few cheap hangers waited tiredly was devoid of any finery, despite the invitation which he had extended in his earlier correspondence. He smiled with still grace and wrapped a dressmaker's garment bag in a quiet embrace on one of the lonely hooks in the pseudo closet.

As the shower ceased its rain of moisture and the valves squeaked to a close in the dingy bathroom, the door to Clarice's room opened and shut with a quiet rush of hinges and an audible click. Caught in the middle of wrapping her hair in one of the rough towels, she caught the click in mid-twist, and grabbed her gun in one hand and the closure of her homespun robe in the other.

After twenty minutes of fruitless searching, she stood in the middle of the room, her robe discarded messily stop her suitcase, fingering the material of the expensive dress. "Dr. Lecter, was this yours?" she murmured, feeling her heart-rate spike at the very notion. "Is this a .... present?" Carefully, she packed it away in her things, and then dressed, moving with precise, even motions that would be better described by a robot than a human being, and ran one last check over every surface in the room before heading down to the lobby. Once there, she ran a practiced eye over the fresh-faced clerk at the desk, and immediately asked, in as forceful a tone as she could manage with her lacking linguistic skills, to see a manager. "Someone who speaks English, please," she added firmly, crossing her arms.

The wide-eyed young man nodded and leaned into the little office directly behind his desk, speaking in rapid-fire Italian Clarice could not even hope to follow. A well-dressed older man came out, short and stout in the manner of many Italians prone to enjoying the finer fruits of their ethnic cuisine, and smiled in what he hoped was a welcoming manner at the damp, roughly dressed American who stood irately before him. "If I can be of any assistance to you, _signorina_, I would be more than happy to --."

"How many key cards was I given to my room?" Starling's brusque interruption was startling even to her. She knew it was probably the same here as it was in America, and that interrogation tactics would get her nowhere, but she couldn't stop the harshness hanging in the air now.

The manager's eyes flicked to the clerk's, and he spread his hands. "The standard procedure is that a guest is given two keys, in the case of having misplaced one, to always have a backup," he explained quietly. "If you have lost one, I can replace it easily – there is no charge."

"No, I didn't lose one." She ground her teeth, wondering why she was suddenly so angry. "There was someone in my room earlier while I was showering, and I wanted to know if someone else came down here and requested a key. I'm not traveling with anyone else, and I'm sure it wasn't the housekeeping. Do you have a record of anyone else who could have access to the keycards? Have the staff reported any of their master cards missing?" _Were any of the staff themselves reported missing? _she thought with heavy, sick dread. Sometimes, Hannibal would deviate from his pattern of killing to amuse, and sometimes, he would kill to get something he wanted.

The manager frowned. "All of the housekeeping staff would have access to all the rooms – they carry master cards that allow them access when guests are away from their rooms in order to tidy up ..." He saw instantly that this was not what she wished to know, and continued. Something in her bright, dark eyes and too-pale face was upsetting. "But a guest, or someone wishing to visit a room in which a guest is staying has only to ask of the front desk where they are staying..."

"Did someone ask for another key to my room before now?"

The manager glanced at the young man beside him, who spread his hands as the question was repeated to him in Italian. "He says no one has been to the desk except for two couples who checked in about an hour before you came down. There has been traffic in and out of course, but no one has approached the desk in need of any key cards before you, _signorina._"

She knew she could flash her badge in a moment and ask to see the security tapes of the lobby for the last few hours, but it wouldn't tell her anything more than she already knew. She knew he'd been the one to check her in. Whether he'd left or not after that was inconsequential. She knew he'd been here. The possible shot she might get of him leaving the hotel through the glass doors at the front had the wrong angle to it to describe in which direction he would have turned upon leaving the hotel, and there was still that message he'd left on her cellphone to deal with. She sighed, tiredly, and nodded. "Thank you, gentlemen."

"_Signorina, _my staff and I want your stay here to be as comfortable as possible, and if your privacy has been intruded upon in your current lodging, then I take this as a personal affront." The manager was digging through his logbook. "I would take it as a personal favour to myself if you would accept a new suite on the hotel's tab." He held up his hand as Clarice started to object. "Please, _signorina, _I would greatly appreciate your patience... Ah. Giuseppe, _accompagna prego signorina Starling alla serie esecutiva_." He showed the young man a room on a piece of paper, and the man nodded with a handsome smile.

Starling looked between the two of them. "Look, I didn't complain because I wanted --"

The manager smiled. She saw no condescension there, and that was good. "_Si, signorina_, I know. But I wish for you to be as comfortable as possible here, so please follow Guiseppe, and I will be sure to keep this between you and I." He made a notation in his book and handed her the piece of paper, folded around the packet of key cards.

_There's no way he can keep my occupation of this suite under wraps. _But Clarice appreciated the attempt, and followed the fresh-faced young man to the elevators, where he led her to what would be her new domicile.

"_Qui, signorina, questa è la serie. Spero che la gradiciate_." He bobbed his head to her and pushed open the door, setting her hastily re-packed suitcase just inside. For a moment, Clarice simply stared at the extent of largess she'd been given, and then turned back, hoping that a smile and some vague pleasantry wouldn't reveal to the earnest fellow that she actually had no idea what it was he'd said, but he was already gone. Frowning, she peered around the door, her hand dropping low to the gun riding at her hip, but the hall was empty. One of the shining elevators was just closing.

Shivering, she closed and locked the door behind her, resisting the childish urge to place some heavy piece of furniture in the way of the portal, and placed herself against it instead. She slid down, feeling the hefty, welcome butt of the gun dig into her side as she sat, and wrapped her arms around herself. A walk would warm her, she decided. Anything to get out of this hotel for a while, and it might give her some place to start... She pushed herself to her feet and puttered around for a few minutes more, brushing her hair and changing her clothes, though she had long since learned she had little need to primp.

The rush of her suite door closing itself fluttered gaspingly over to the creamy envelope sitting forlornly on the chair nearest the bed, which Clarice had not approached. Dutifully, it slid downwards, as she had against the door, to rest against the seat of the chair. Her name, in beautiful copperplate handwriting, glared sightlessly up at the ceiling.


End file.
